Very short question on Communion Master and the slave matrix

[onomastikon]

Originally posted by Zen:
The benefits of Communion/Sabbath for Masters are:

2 Slaves +1 to all Magic Paths, Including Holy/Unholy
4 Slaves +2 to all Magic Paths, Including Holy/Unholy
8 Slaves +3 to all Magic Paths, Including Holy/Unholy
16 Slaves +4 to all Magic Paths, Including Holy/Unholy

And so on and so on. Then of course fatigue is distributed among the slaves by the masters of the sabbath/communion.

You can only have a Crystal item work on someone who has at least 1 path in magic.

There is no benefit of having odd numbers of slaves except for Fatigue distribution.

I didnt know it also booosted Holy. Great.

Question: How can I tell if it is working? Normally when you get power-boosting items on a mage, the little numbers with the icons next to them increase -- I have NOT seen this on the various configs with Masters and Slaves. How do I know when my mages get more power? Or the Priests?

[mivayan]

The game does not indicate in any way at all how much power your mage get from the communion. The only way to tell is that he might cast spells he could not cast before.

Remember that you can script spells that are greyed out because you dont have enough skill. For example you can script communion master,smite,smite,smite,smite on a pythium arch-theurg (who only has holy4), and if you bring at least two communicants he will cast the smite.

[Taqwus]

An additional Communion Fun Fact -- spells which normally would just affect the Communion Master will also affect the slaves.
Summon Earthpower will make ALL the communicants -- all masters share all communicants -- get reinvigoration 4, for instance. Invulnerability will make them all prot-30. Phoenix Pyre will make them battlefield-immortal unless unconscious. And so forth.
Just be careful about overdoing the master/slave ratio -- masters may continue casting spells even when communicants go 200+ fatigue, take damage, and quite possibly die. It's helpful to bring along a nature caster for Relief.

[Xavier]

...and if you bring in 2 masters and 4 slaves, do both masters get +2 all spheres or just +1?

All masters get the bonus of the # of slaves. Depending on what exactly you are doing I commonly go 3 or 4 masters per 4 slaves.

[ywl]

Originally posted by Xavier:
...and if you bring in 2 masters and 4 slaves, do both masters get +2 all spheres or just +1?

At least for Dom 1, I have the general impression that you can only have one Master. If two cast the spell, the Last one should take over. In general the Slaves will just sit there, not doing anything unless the Master has retreated or maybe killed (didn't check the latter). But I seem to have seen slaves doing thing while Master is still around - not sure whether that was replay error or bugs of the program.

I haven't tested very thoroughly. Have anyone tried after Version 2.* came out?

[ywl]

Originally posted by ywl:

quote:

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Originally posted by Xavier:
...and if you bring in 2 masters and 4 slaves, do both masters get +2 all spheres or just +1?

At least for Dom 1, I have the general impression that you can only have one Master. If two cast the spell, the Last one should take over. In general the Slaves will just sit there, not doing anything unless the Master has retreated or maybe killed (didn't check the latter). But I seem to have seen slaves doing thing while Master is still around - not sure whether that was replay error or bugs of the program.

I haven't tested very thoroughly. Have anyone tried after Version 2.* came out?

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I just tested once. There can be more than one Master. I could have mistaken when I checked it in Dom 1 or there are some subtle difference between the spell and the Crystal Matrix, which I used mostly in the old test. The slaves still sit there doing nothing.